South Carolina's new football staff young, unproven, and maybe just what is needed
Shane Beamer has put the final touches on his inagural coaching staff at South Carolina.
Assuming Auburn hasn't hired away any more holdovers from the Will Muschamp era between now and hitting the publish button, the new group of coaches are a departure from Carolina's usual model from the last 20 years.
Or nearly 60 years.
There is not a proven head coach, and when I say proven, I mean a proven track record of what you are likely to expect. With Lou Holtz and Steve Spurrier, you got two men that elevated a program, before holding on for one year too long and setting things back.
With Muschamp, you got a guy who could do well with other coach's talent before the program bottoming out two years later when he had to worry about more than just the defense and punching white boards.
Now, the head coach has no proven track record as a head coach.
All that is known about Beamer is his ability to recruit.
The overall staff is also different from the past.
It is young. The average age is 44, with offensive line coach Greg Atkins the elder statesman at 53, and special teams coordinator Pete Lembo the next oldest at 50. Lembo comes from Memphis, but also had a short stint at Maryland (2016-2017). Atkins was recently at Marshall, but has also made stops at Troy, Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma State and Charlotte, along with a two-year stint with the Buffalo Bills
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| Clayton White |
Satterfield most recent coordinator experience was at Temple from 2013-2015, with previous roles also at Chattanooga (2009-2012) and UT-Martin (2006-2007). He was also head coach at Tennessee Tech (2016-2017).
Tight ends coach Erik Kimrey is on his first college job after a successful tenure at Hammond High School in South Carolina, where he won multiple state championships.
The staff does have some Power 5 experience.
Runningback coach Des Kitchens was previously at NC State, and is in his second year at Carolina. Receiver coach Justin Stepp worked at Arkansas the previous four seasons.
Linebacker coach Mike Peterson has been at South Carolina as a position coach since 2014.
Defensive back coach Torrian Gray had two stints at Florida and a stint at Virginia Tech.
Defensive line coach Jimmy Lindsey had a one-year stint at Illinois, prior to three years at WKU with White, along with stops at mostly FCS schools.
But when it comes to the major decision-makers, having no Power 5 play-calling experience is rare.
You could argue no one has Power 5 experience until they get there, and I'd argue just because you coach Power 5 doesn't automatically make you a great coach.
Florida defensive coordinator Todd Grantham has coached nothing but NFL and Power 5 for 30 years and he gets fired or "parts on amicable terms" every three years it seems. The Gamecocks' last head coach was an established name with 20 years experience at Power 5 or NFL, and all that got was six wins over the last two years.
The point is, just because it is a proven name doesn't mean success, the same way a name unknown to the average fan isn't indicitative of inferiority.
Everybody is a Jimmy Nobody until they get the chance to prove they are a Joe Somebody.
No doubt, this entire venture by athletic director Ray Tanner and university president Bob Caslen is a gamble. There are a lot of uknowns, but I'd argue every hire is an uknown. This one just tends to have more unknowns than most.
Sure, Holtz and Spurrier had pedigree and a proven track record, but neither reached the heights of their hype during their time at South Carolina. The difference between those two and Beamer is that fans had a tangible proof, an expectation of verifiable return with those two.
With Beamer, everyone is left holding their arms out, palms up, when asked, "What do you actually think is going to happen?"
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| Marcus Satterfield |
And that "wu, I dunno" extends to the staff. You know White will run a 4-2-5 defense and there is tape of his teams from WKU, but how does that translate to South Carolina?
No one has seen a Satterfield offense in a few years, but the promise of taking from what worked at Temple with a dash of Oklahoma's air raid offense and mix of what was seen with LSU and the Carolina Panthers under coordinator Joe Brady, but no one can definitively say what in the world that looks like.
And the big question: Can this staff get the players in the program necessary to compete, and develop them in a way that translates to sustained success?
To be honest, sustained success has never really happened at Carolina. More short bursts that flame out.
Look at your top five winningest coaches. Three of them made their name at other schools -- Paul Dietzel at LSU, Jim Carlen at West Virginia and Texas Tech and Spurrier at Florida -- while Rex Enright, No. 2 all-time, coached at Carolina exclusively.
Billy Laval also coached only at Carolina, but do we really put a lot of stock from guys that coached in the Depression era, because I don't think much applies to today (Yes, I know Enright coached in the 30s, but also the 40s, and 50s).
Holtz, number seven in wins at the school, of course made his name at Notre Dame, and neither he, Dietzel or Spurrier brought national titles, and outside of Dietzel's 1969 season, or conference titles.
I think Carolina would be happy if Beamer matched Laval's .592 win percentage. Its better than the .483 you just walked Muschamp, and that $13 million buyout, out the door with.
Just give it a chance. Outside the box, unconventional thinking may be just what Carolina needs.
And if it flames out, just hire a new coach in five years. I'm sure Urban Meyer will want out of Jacksonville by then, and you can say, "We've pulled a legend back to college from the NFL, and he will recreate what he did at Florida."
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